


And still I reminisce

by aftermillennia



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: British Museum, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Light Angst, Loneliness, Pining, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29956344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aftermillennia/pseuds/aftermillennia
Summary: The artist of the bust is talented, a master of their craft undoubtedly with the attention to detail to every laugh line, every coil of hair, every drape of cloth. But it’s a pale imitation.(Quỳnh takes a trip to a museum)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27
Collections: The Old Guard Femslash Fortnight





	And still I reminisce

**Author's Note:**

> For [The Old Guard Femslash Fortnight](https://tog-femslashfortnight.tumblr.com/) Wednesday Prompt: Poem/Song as inspiration (writer's choice)
> 
> The song I picked was "Haunted When The Minutes Drag" by Love and Rockets. Give it a listen if you dig 80s alt rock :)
> 
> This is also _heavily_ inspired by [@kayivy's](https://kayivy.tumblr.com/tagged/mine) beautiful Andromaquynh art. Thanks for sharing your incredible artwork!

The exhibit is crowded but she walks leisurely through the milling bodies without a second glance at the 16th century artwork adorning the walls. This gallery holds no interest for her; the piece she came to see is stationed deeper within the yawning mouth of this beast that consumes art, history, _cultures_ , with an insatiable appetite and she moves easily past distracted gawkers. 

She’s nearly to the arched doorway leading out of the gallery when she skates her eyes over the sea of bobbing heads at a pair of portraits taller than anyone in the room, hanging side by side. She slows to a stop and turns to face them head on. She recognizes the dark curly hair, the eyes so unfathomably deep they look black, the kindness of that smile. He is staring across the boundaries of the frame at the man in the adjacent portrait who has been rendered to the point of tangibility; his seaglass eyes, his curved nose, his mole. 

They are together, even here. 

She sighs, chest aching. The envy that dogged her thoughts at the beginning have long faded away. Her fate is no fault of theirs, or her own. Their happiness is hard-fought for and deserved; one day she hopes hers will be achieved as well. 

She slips between a quietly bickering couple and leaves the gallery at last. Her footsteps resemble slaps in the quiet of the sparsely populated exhibits but she ignores the glances from staff. She bypasses the masterpieces surrounding her until glass cases turn to towering marble and bronze statues. The further in she walks, the smaller the artwork becomes; marble statues depicting mythological scenes shift to full body statues shift to busts. 

She enters a gallery devoid of any other person save for the guard stationed a dozen feet off to the side. It’s silent save for her own breath, the soft press of her boots against the floor as she approaches the glass case in the corner of the room. She only slows to a stop once her reflection stares back at her. If she tilts her head to the side, her mouth almost overlays the woman’s in a kiss. 

She becomes a sentinel, tracing the points where their faces meet beyond the glass. 

The crowds thin by the time the sunlight reaches the far wall of the gallery, shifting from gold to red. Indistinct murmurs echo down the stretch of austere corridors but more often than not they’re quieted by another patron’s exasperated shushing. She doesn’t know how long she’s been standing here — hours, maybe — but certainly long enough for security guards to mill through the gallery several times, circling like vultures. Her attention hasn’t wavered. 

The hair is wrong; it’s the observation she keeps circling back to most of all. The style was worn and cursed out the entire day she had worn it until they bedded down for the night, never to be donned again. 

_“My scalp feels like it’s been set on fire.”_

_“A small price to pay for getting close to our target, wouldn’t you agree?” She had said, slowly unwinding the ropes of dark hair which trailed over her lap like a nest of asps. The head resting on her thighs shifted, tilted back to look into her eyes._

_“...Never again.”_

_“Of course, my heart.”_

Her hand twitches against her leg, the phantom sensation of soft hair sifting through her fingers is so strong she has to glance down to confirm that it’s not real. She curls her hand into a fist. 

The artist of the bust is talented, a master of their craft undoubtedly with the attention to detail to every laugh line, every coil of hair, every drape of cloth. But it’s a pale imitation. 

For millennia, she felt the heat radiating off the curve of that cheek after a day of heady whispers, the steady pulse against her palm when she cupped the long column of that neck, the slight exhalation against her own mouth when she pressed her lips against that cupid’s bow. Nothing can compare. Her memories, these fragments, have haunted her for centuries between each desperate gasp back to life. 

The paint that used to adorn the bust is long gone, another victim of time. 

For a moment, she is struck by the absurdity of her presence in this place; a building to house touchstones of history, ignorant to the multitude of knowledge she possesses which far surpasses the collective breadth of its contents. She never had the chance to experience institutions like this before now but she knows that Yusuf would have loathed the stolen nature of a predominant number of the artworks on exhibit as much as he admired their individual craftsmanship, Nicolò would have enjoyed watching the visitors interact with history and art more than viewing the work itself, and Andromache would have never stepped foot inside. 

_“We’re relics, Quỳnh.”_

_“I prefer to believe we’re artifacts. Prized ones, in fact.” Quỳnh had said, chewing on a few pomegranate seeds with a growing smile._

_“Hmm, an awfully romantic notion. You’ve been spending far too much time with Yusuf.” Andromache leaned into her side and plucked a few seeds from her palm. She was a heavy, warm weight against her as they sat in the grass and watched the sun slowly fade._

_“Ha! I taught him everything he knows.”_

An intercom buzzes to life overhead and informs visitors that the museum will be closing shortly. She can feel the weight of the guards attention but she steps minutely closer to the glass case and traces her fingers down the bust’s nose, the hollow of its eyes. The glass is cold against her skin but she barely registers it; the aching, burning cold she’s felt since surfacing is a constant companion these days. She knows these memories are only embers but she carefully tends to them day after day, wishing for the time when she no longer has to. 

“I’ll see you soon,” Quynh murmurs, hand sliding off the glass as she quietly leaves the gallery.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Here's your reminder that you are irreplaceable, you are not alone, and you are very, very loved. Stay safe! 
> 
> I'm [@aftermillennia](https://aftermillennia.tumblr.com/) on tumblr <3
> 
> Please check out the amazing content being created for the women of TOG by reading through the Femslash Fortnight collection here on Ao3 and by checking out the [Femslash Fortnight tumblr](https://tog-femslashfortnight.tumblr.com/).


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